Collegiate Marketing
Team Services works with many premier universities to provide a full spectrum of major partnership and marketing services for both athletics and campus-wide opportunities.
Our experts have many years of experience supporting every aspect of a collegiate athletic department’s sales and marketing needs. Services we provide our clients include stadium/arena design, specifically from a revenue-generating perspective, comparative inventory analysis, and evaluation of all revenue opportunities derived from major line items i.e. naming rights, sponsorships, premium seating, concessions, and merchandising.
Team Services has built upon its success in creating high-level, multiplatform sports sponsorships to expand corporate relationships beyond the realm of athletics and develop cross campus partnerships. Serving as an extension of the university development office, we work with current vendors and other interested parties to create specialized programs integrating the business and marketing interests of both entities.
Below, we’ve prepared brief case studies for a few of our collegiate clients: Georgetown University, University of Connecticut, University of Maryland, Fresno State University and University of Central Florida.
Georgetown University
At Georgetown, Team Services works on behalf of the university serving as its chief liaison with the corporate community. Our primary objective is to develop mutually beneficial relationships with the most esteemed companies interested in aligning themselves with the Georgetown University brand.
Inherent with Georgetown’s status as one of the elite academic institutions in the world, Team Services has played a major role in developing corporate partnerships within the Georgetown Global Education Institute, a ground-breaking customized training program for China’s emerging leaders. Additionally, Team Services has been responsible for securing campus partnerships across multiple university platforms including: athletics, auto, banking, energy, real estate, shipping and travel.
University of Connecticut
Team Services negotiated the stadium lease (Rentschler Field) between the University of Connecticut and the Office of Policy Management (in the State of Connecticut, two state entities cannot negotiate directly) and increased the season tick base to 25,000 in the first year at the new stadium. We then developed premium corporate sponsorship packages for the university that resulted in new revenues in excess of $4.9 million over a five-year period.
Team Services also performed extensive comparative analysis of luxury suites and signage inventories of colleges across the country and advised the athletic department in multiple areas including ticket sales, campus-wide business-to-business opportunities and media partnerships. Our partners included: Cingular Wireless, Cooper Tires, Dunkin Donuts, IGA, Pizza Hut, SBC Communications and State Farm Insurance.
University of Maryland
The University of Maryland retained Team Services to market the naming rights to their new field house, the Comcast Center. Team Services capitalized on regional branding and business-to-business opportunities for Comcast by securing rights to provide cable services for the entire campus. Working with the University — in conjunction with the State of Maryland– Team Services finalized an agreement with Comcast Communications within six months and went on to build partnerships and advise the university on marketing initiatives related to the new venue.
Fresno State
Fresno State tapped Team Services to help them build partnerships and advise the California State University, Fresno Athletic Corporation (Fresno State) on all aspects of marketing. This project included the development of sales initiatives for a renovated football facility, Bulldog Stadium. Team Services also helped create and issue a Request for Proposal to identify an outside company to sell athletics marketing sponsorship rights.
Team Services also developed a premium corporate sponsorship package with Nextel that was one of the largest wireless partnerships in the county. In addition, Team Services completed a study of the expansion of seats and luxury suites for Byrd Stadium.
University of Central Florida
Team Services was hired by the University of Central Florida (UCF) to consult on naming rights for UCF’s multi-venue development project, specifically their football stadium and basketball arena. Team Services assisted UCF in identifying elements and inventory that could be packaged into a naming rights partnership, as well as created an impression study to analyze metrics for both the football stadium and basketball arena project.
Working integrally with UCF, Team Services designed a dynamic presentation to take to market on sales calls. Team Services additionally provided direction and consultation for negotiation and pricing with select targeted companies.
Ultimately, Team Services assisted in delivering a $15 million naming rights agreement between Bright House Networks and the University of Central Florida. This partnership was viewed as a key financial component in the university’s completion of its new, on-campus football stadium.
Construction and operation of the stadium was funded through naming rights, revenues from suites and club seat leases, ticket and concessions sales, donations, corporate sponsorships and advertising.
